Does anyone share my feelings? I find these presets as a really nice way to start developing my negatives. Newest version includes a lot of new films emulations, including the VC and NC versions of Kodak Portra.

That is one sad truth! Yet I really don't regret buying them, since i found myself using these presets a lot. But of course I realize that if you don't really need the features then it hurts to pay only for presets, since, theoretically, "you could do that yourself", but I found out that with my regular editing process I usually end up with a good but more "digital" result. Off course this is all subjective and a matter of personal taste

Not only is the price too high ($238) for both LR4 sets, but, their "samples" don't show any before and after effects - only the preset name used!

And, if you have CS6, add another $119 to the price!

No trials before you give them your credit card number - to see if it looks like what you can justify. Not a great way to run a company in my opinion.

Actually if you own VSCO 01, then the 02 comes half the price. And I don't know why would you like to have it also in ACR (I mean, what does ACR does that Lightroom won't do for you?), so it would be 179$ by my calculations, for both 01 and 02 versions, although it would be much wiser to buy only one of the sets. Since they are basically presets, I don't see how they could give them away on a trial version without give their magic recipe for free. In fact to "hack" this will be a piece of cake, all it would take is to make a list of every plugin specific settings and post it somewhere, that's it (which I won't do off course) That been said, i recognize that they could provide us some before and after samples. I also think they are trying a more "visual glamour" (for giving a name to their strategy) impact, kind of what Apple also do, you know what I'm talking about the ohh-that-is-one-fine-designed-item-and-beautiful-website-so-it-must-be-good kind of stuff. In fact, the first time I hear about them was on a best web designs awards site, not at all focused on photography.

After following them on Facebook for a while, I saw some positive user's reviews, some sample photos, i send a couple of emails regarding some doubts about digital backs files compatibility, and one day I bought my copy. I guess you could say i'm a trusty person. Now I'm starting to think I might as well be the only one on LuLa that has purchased VSCO Film. whatever dudes i'm enjoying it

And enough free advertising for these boys, damn, they should hire me for their marketing dept.

Maybe a bit harsh in this case.From what I can see, the VSCO presets are just a way of making things look less 'digital' rather than giving a radical 'look', not necessarily a bad thing in itself.Preset vendors like VSCO offer a solution for people who don't have the time, knowledge or imagination to create their own.

Building customised camera calibration profiles isn't exactly page 1 skills. Being able to recognise what characterises a specific film stock's look and then knowing enough about LR's controls to replicate it isn't simple either.

I'm not knocking anyone for using presets like the VSCO ones, quite often the really subtle presets are the hardest to create.

The gap is less about skill - more the imagination. Glad the OP is happy, but what a phenomenal waste of money.

I tend to think that imagination is better distributed if at least an 80% of it is being used to visualize and obtain the desired photography and the remaining 20% gets used for the "creative" editing that comes after. I also think that by inverting that principle, you might be getting images, you might be getting art, you might be getting illustrations, but you also get a step away from photography (i'm not saying that would be a bad thing, i like lots of stuff made that way). In the money department, hey, i have seen a lot more money wasted on some "perfect" or "extremely rare" gear or lenses, and I mean A LOT of money.

Although the characteristics of a film stock were originally a set of subjective choices by the film maker...

That poses the interesting question of how much of the characteristics of an emulsion are the result of a specification of 'look' or just the by-product of other more objective requirements eg sensitivity, contrast ratio, low grain etc.

That poses the interesting question of how much of the characteristics of an emulsion are the result of a specification of 'look' or just the by-product of other more objective requirements eg sensitivity, contrast ratio, low grain etc

I don't really know how digital camera profiles are made, but I think the same could be applied to those?

That poses the interesting question of how much of the characteristics of an emulsion are the result of a specification of 'look' or just the by-product of other more objective requirements eg sensitivity, contrast ratio, low grain etc.

Agreed. It undermines the credibility of b&w presets where the characteristics of a given film vary with the choice of developer, its dilution or agitation technique. That's probably true of colour too, though my hands-on experience of developing colour has been more "binary" (perfect or ruined).